6S9 



WAHHABIS. 



WAIF. 



OX) 



to please the senses, and which found favour among people who have 

 always loved to follow the bent of their imaginations. Mohammed 

 gradually received honours like God himself ; virtuous men became 

 saints, and the miracles they were said to have performed were 

 eagerly believed by the people ; many austere rules of the Koran 

 were forgotten or left to the extravagances " of a few derwishes 

 and fakirs ; " and the places of worship were adorned by the princes 

 and the rich with the arts and luxuries of the East, while the 

 poorer Mohammedans indulged their passion for religious buildings by 

 erecting a rude tomb to some unknown saint, surmounted by a cupola 

 of painted brickwork. To this we must add that the Koran ceased 

 to be the sole source of religious knowledge, and that traditions con- 

 cerning Mohammed were considered by his disciples as pure and 

 trustworthy as the Koran itself. Although the Arabs had deviated 

 from the rule of the Koran, there was a striking difference between 

 them and the Turks. The Turks used opium and wine ; not satisfied 

 with polygamy, they had intercourse with prostitutes ; they were 

 addicted to practices against nature, which are strictly prohibited by 

 the Kordn, and more than once holy hajis of the Turkish caravans 

 had polluted the sacred cities with their scandalous conduct. The 

 caravans especially, those congregations of pious men assembled for 

 the purpose of performing one of the most sacred duties of their 

 faith, presented a revolting aspect to the simple and uncorrupted 

 believers among the Beduius of the desert. Their leaders gave full 

 licence to debauchery, and although it was generally their riches which 

 tempted the Beduins, and excited them to predatory attacks, it often 

 happened that the Son of the Desert unsheathed his sword indignant 

 at the pride and vices of men who, from the moment they reached 

 Mecca, proudly assumed the holy title of hdjt. 



Such was the state of the Islam, when, in the beginning of the 

 last century, a Mohammedan sheikh conceived the project of reform- 

 ing the religion of Mohammed, and restoring it to its primitive 

 purity. 



This sheikh was 'Abdu-1-Wahhdb (" the servant of Him who gives 

 (us) every thing"), who was born at Kl-Hauta, a village five or six 

 days' journey south of Der'aiyeh, the capital of the province of Nejd, 

 on the road from this town to the district called Wddi Dowasir, or as 

 some say at 'Al-Aynah, in Nejd, or Aiyineh, which seems to be El- 

 Ayeyneh, near Der'aiyeh. 'Abdu-1-Wahhao was born at the begin- 

 ning of the 12th century of the Hijira, which corresponds to the end 

 of the 1 7th century of our sera. His father was the sheikh, or chief, 

 of the Beni Wahhdb, a branch of the great tribe of Temiiu, which 

 occupies a considerable part of Nejd. 'Abdu-1-Wahhdb received his 

 education in the schools of Basrah, where he studied divinity. He 

 made the usual pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, and lived several 

 years at Damascus, where he had frequent disputations with the 

 divines on religion, but displaying great zeal in the abolition of 

 abuses, his doctrine was considered as schismatic, and being exposed 

 to persecutions, he fled to Mosul. After some time he returned to 

 Arabia, but the doctrines which he preached to the natives, and his 

 violent attacks on Turkish tyranny and vice, became so many causes 

 for new persecutions, and he led a wandering life till he settled at 

 Der'aiyeh, the residence of the sheikh Mohammed Ibn Sa'ud. This 

 intelligent chief listened to the words of the reformer. He became 

 his disciple ; he married his daughter ; and soon drew his sword to 

 propagate the new doctrine among the tribes of Arabia. Mohammed 

 Ibn Sa'ud thus laid the foundations of a powerful empire on theo- 

 cratical principles, of which his descendants remained masters for 

 nearly a century. 



When Sa'ud, the grandson of Mohammed Ibn Sa'ud, conquered 

 Mecca, he ordered a kind of confession of faith to be published, the 

 substance of which is as followu : 



'Abdu-1-Wahhab's doctrine teaches the salvation of mankind. It is 

 divided into three parts : I., the knowledge of God ; II., the knowledge 

 of religion; III., the knowledge of the prophet In the first part, 

 God, it is said, is one Almighty, and we acquire the knowledge of him 

 by adoring him. The second part, knowledge of religion, is threefold, 

 and contains 1. The Islam, or resignation to the will of God ; 2. 

 Faith; 3. Good works. The IsMm contains five things : 1. The belief 

 that there is only one God, and that Mohammed is his prophet ; 2. 

 The five daily prayers; 3. Alms, one-fifth of the annual income; 

 4. Fasts during the month of Bamazan ; 5. The pilgrimage to Mecca. 

 The Faith contains six things, namely : 1. The belief in God ; 2. In 

 his angels ; 3. In his Holy Scriptures ; 4. In his prophets ; 5. In his 

 divine and perfect qualities ; 6. In the day of judgment. Good Works 

 are only the consequence of the rule that we should adore God as if 

 lie were present to our eyes ; and though we cannot see him, we must 

 know that hi sees us. The knowledge of the prophet, which is the 

 moat important part of Wahhiibism, is based on very positive principles. 

 Mohammed, the prophet, was a mortal like all other men, and he 

 preached for all the nations of the world, and not for one only, the 

 Arabs ; no religion is perfect and true in all its parts except his, and 

 after him no other prophet will come ; Moses and Jesus were virtuous 

 men, though inferior to Mohammed, notwithstanding he was not of 

 ilivine nature. Those who do not fulfil their religious duties are to 

 be severely punished. The reformed religion shall be propagated with 

 ord, and all those who refuse to adopt it are to be exterminated. 

 'Abdu-1-Wahhab not only forbade the adoration of Mohammed and of 



ARTS AHD SCI. DtV. VOL. Tilt 



saints, but he also ordered their splendid tombs to be destroyed, and 

 he declared tradition to be an impure source. He made several other 

 prohibitions concerning social and religious abuses, such as the habit 

 of using wiue, opium, and tobacco, the use of the rosary for prayers 

 and he preached strongly against those unnatural practices which were 

 and are still so frequent among the Turks. 



The doctrine of 'Abdu-1-Wahhiib was no new religion : it was 

 Mohammedanism reduced to a pure deism, and so little did it deviate 

 from the Koran, that even to the present day many theologians of 

 Syria and Egypt do not venture to say that it is schismatic. Yet this 

 reformer maintained that there had never been any man directly in- 

 spired by God, and that there was no scripture or book whatsoever 

 which was entitled to be called divine. Hence it follows that accord- 

 ing to 'Abdu-l-Wahhib there is no revealed religion ; and if he calls 

 the Mohammedan a divine religion, it is not because he believed that, 

 it had been transmitted directly from God to man, but merely on tho 

 ground of its perfection. 



The reformed Mohammedanism made rapid progress, especially 

 among the nomadic Arabs, or Beduins, who had never adored 

 Mohammed as a divine person, nor viewed the Korfln as a divine 

 book, although they considered themselves to be as orthodox Moham- 

 medans as any of the other nations which have adopted the Islam. 



The inhabitants of the towns were less inclined to adopt Wahhabism , 

 but Mohammed Ibn Sa'ud nevertheless succeeded in conquering the 

 greater part of Nejd, of which he was the temporal chief, while 

 'Abdu-1-Wahhdb was the spiritual chief. The system of government 

 established by these two men was strictly conformable to the political 

 prescriptions of the Kordn, and very like that of the first khalifs. 

 The chief authority lay in the hands of the temporal chief, but this 

 authority was confined to the direction of important affairs ; the 

 governors of the provinces and the under-goveruors were kept in strict 

 obedience to the orders of the prince, but their authority over the 

 Arabs was not very great. The ulema of the capital, Der'aiyeh, who 

 generally belonged to the clan or family of Sa'ud, formed a council or 

 ministry for religious and legislative affairs, and in time of war the 

 governors used to assemble in Der'aiyeh for the purpose of concerting 

 the plan of the campaign. Trade and agriculture were well protected. 

 The revenues of tho Wahhribi empire were composed of : 1. One- 

 fifth of the booty taken from heretics ; the four remaining fifths were 

 for the soldiers. 2. The tribute, called " alms " in the Koran : it was 

 a certain part of the property, which varied according to the nature 

 of the property : for fields watered by rain or rivers it was one-tenth 

 of the yearly produce ; for fields watered artificially, one-twentieth 

 only ; merchants paid one and a half per cent of their capital. The 

 Beduins, who had always been tax-free, disliked these " alms " very 

 much, but they were indemnified by the frequent occasions of plunder. 

 3. Revenue from the chiefs or prince's own estates, and from the 

 plunder of rebellious towns. The punishment for a first rebellion was 

 a general plunder, one-fifth of which belonged to the fiscus ; in case 

 of a second rebellion, all the grounds belonging to the town were 

 confiscated, and became the property of the reigning chief ; and as such 

 rebellions were very frequent, the chief acquired immense estates. 

 The greater part of them were afterwards confiscated by Mehemet 'Ali, 

 the pasha of Egypt. Except a few hundred men who formed the 

 prince's life-guard at Der'aiyeh, the Wahhiibls had no standing army, 

 but assembled when the prince designed some expedition. Two or 

 three great expeditions were made every year. 



The name of the Wahhdbis soon became known in the Turkish pro- 

 vinces adjacent to Arabia. The Turkish government was not aware 

 that this sect had as much warlike and religious energy as the Arabs 

 under the first khalifs, and employed little activity in their efforts to 

 coerce them. The Wahhitbis were successful in their resistance. They 

 gained several battles, and even possessed themselves of Mecca. At 

 length their subjugation was entrusted to Mehemet "AH. [MEHEMICT 

 'ALI, in Bioo. Div.J He commenced his preparations in 1809, but 

 active hostilities only began in 1811, and continued for several years. 

 By 1818, however, their power was completely broken, and "Abdullah, 

 the successor of Sa'ud, was captured, sent to Constantinople, and there 

 beheaded. The sect, however, though subdued, was not exterminated. 

 They have more than once risen again in arms, but have been repressed ; 

 but still their tenets are understood to have numerous adherents 

 throughout Arabia. 



(Burckhardt, Notes on the Sedouim and Wdhabyg ; Mengin, Histoire 

 Bommaire dcCEgypte toai le Gourernemcnt de Mohammed Aly ; Corancez, 

 Histoire del Wahabii.) 



WAHLENBERGIA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order 

 Campanulacece, of which the botanical characters are given in the 

 NAT. HIST. Div. To this genus belongs the Wall Pellitory of Great 

 Britain ; and some of the numerous foreign species are cultivated on 

 account of their blue and red flowers. For this purpose the seeds 

 of those which are annual should be sown on the hot-bed, and when 

 the plants are of sufficient size they may be placed out in the open 

 border in a warm sheltered situation in the month of May. The hardy 

 perennial species may be grown in pots in a mixture of peat and loam, 

 and should be kept rather moist They are easily increased by 

 division. 



WAIF. If the goods of any person were stolen, and the felon, 

 thinking that pursuit was made after him, fled, and during his flight 



